Can you imagine if you didn't have the malware protection and the process isolation of Chrome, that Chrome brought to other browsers? Can you imagine surfing the web the way it is right now? It's pretty grim. There's a lot of malware. You end up basically funnelling people into fewer and fewer sites, and therefore fewer and fewer viewpoints and all the rest.

...as they roll out many algorithmic filters, manual penalties, selectively enforce these issues on smaller players (while giving more exploitative entities a free pass), insert their own vertical search services, dial up their weighting on domain authority, and require smaller players to proactively police the rest of the web while Google thinks the n-word 85 times is totally reasonable on their own tier-1 properties.

We have another post coming on the craziness of disavows and link removals, but it has no doubt gone beyond absurd at this point.

With WMT admission that linkspam MUST be removed we are past tipping point; it's now a risk to not engage in neg SEO against all comp. #sad— Cygnus SEO (@CygnusSEO) January 2, 2014

Why is diversity so important?

Dissent evolves markets. The status quo doesn't get changed by agreeing & aligning with existing power structures. Anyone who cares to debate this need only look at Google's ongoing endless string of lawsuits. Most of those lawsuits are associated with Google (rightly or wrongly) taking power from what they view as legacy entities.

Even on a more personal level, one's investment returns are likely to be better when things are out of favor:

"Investors should remember that excitement and expenses are their enemies. And if they insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful." - Warren Buffett

In many markets returns and popularity are inversely proportional

Investing in Internet stocks in 1999 was popular, but for those who stayed too long at the party it was a train wreck. Domain name speculators who bought into the carnage a couple years later did well.

Think about it: an actual scientist who produces actual knowledge should be more like a journalist who recycles fake insights! This is beyond popularisation. This is taking something with value and substance and coring it out so that it can be swallowed without chewing. This is not the solution to our most frightening problems – rather this is one of our most frightening problems.
- Benjamin Bratton

Or if you put it in Google's browser analysis tool, it looks something like this

And with that move, if you are in ecommerce & you don't rank #1 you are essentially invisible to most searchers.

As John Andrews highlighted on Twitter: "Notice Google tells us "paid relationships improve quality" and then penalizes for paid links?"

As always, it is more profitable to follow Google's biz dev team than Google's public relations pablum.

In some cases Google might include 3 or 4 different types of monetization in a search result. In the below search result Google includes:

AdWords ads

Google Offers

Hotel Comparison ads

Hotel Price ads

And those are *in addition* to featuring promotional links to Google Maps & Google+ in the search results. Further, some of these vertical results consist exclusively of paid inclusion & then have yet another layer of PPC ads over the top.

As SEOs we focus a lot of energy on "how do I rank 1 spot higher" but when the organic results are displaced and appear below the fold why bother? The issue of the incredibly shrinking organic result set is something that can't be over-emphasized. For many SEOs the trend will absolutely be career ending.

AdWords, product listing ads, brand navigation, product search, local, etc. A result like this has a single organic listing above the fold & if Google decides to rank their local one spot higher then that turns to zero.

If you look at the new TLD announcement Google applied for .MBA & .PhD (as well as many names around entertainment, family & software). Thus it is safe to say that education will eventually be added to local, video, media, shopping & travel as verticals where Google is displacing the organic results with links to more of their fraternal listings. About the only big categories this will leave unscathed will be real estate, employment & healthcare. However those first 2 are still in contraction during our ongoing depression & Google blew a lot of their health credibility by pushing those illegal ads for steroids from a person posing as a Mexican drug lord.

In addition to these fixed vertical that cover the most profitable areas of search, Google is also building a "vertical search on the fly" styled service with their knowledge graph. Their knowledge graph extracts data from 3rd party websites & then can be used to funnel traffic and revenue to Google's various vertical services. To make it seem legit, Google will often start by sending some of the traffic onto 3rd party sites, but the end destination is no different than product search. While it is a "beta" product it is free to justify an inferior product being showcased front & center, but after Google gets enough buy in they monetize.

There is a non-subtle difference between Google's approach and Microsoft's approach to building a search ecosystem.

Yahoo! has long been considered out of the search game, yet when they want to have a competitive advantage they do things like license photos from Getty. They use the content with permission on agreed terms.

Google's approach is more along the lines of "scrape it now & figure out legal later." And after a long enough period has passed they will add monetization & mix it into the core of their offering, like they recently did with books:

This launch transitions the billions of pages of scanned books to a unified serving and scoring infrastructure with web search. This is an efficiency, comprehensiveness and quality change that provides significant savings in CPU usage while improving the quality of search results.

Eric Enge interviewed Stefan Weitz about the new Bing interface. As part of that interview, Stefan described Bing's editorial philosophy on building a search ecosystem

We partner with 3rd party services instead of trying to build or acquire them. There are probably something like a million apps out there today.

I talk to probably two dozen start-ups every week that are doing different cool things on the web. To think that we are ever going to be able to actually beat them, or out-execute them (when they are talking about 12 guys with half a million angel funding building some really interesting apps), it is just not likely.

Off the start forays into new categories might provide some value to publishers in order to get buy in, but eventually the "first hit free" stuff shifts to paid & Google continues to displace publishers across more and more of the ecosystem, using content scraped from said publishers.

Funding Scraping

When Google or Apple drive cars around the country or fly military-grade planes over cities to create 3D maps of cities they are creating databases & adding new information. Outside of collecting private data (like wifi payload data) there is little to complain about with that. They are adding value to the system.

However, at the same time, Google not only scrapes themselves, but they are a revenue engine that drives a lot of third party scraping. And they design penalties in a way that allows those who scrape penalized sites to outrank them. With batch penalty updates some folks can chain redirects, expired domains & so on to keep exploiting the combination of copyright violations & Google penalties to make a mint. Google also had a long history of funding Traffic Equalizer sites, sites like Mahalo that would take a copy of a search result & auto-generate a page on it, newspaper sites that would hang auto-generated stub preview articles on subdomains, & sites like eHow which integrate humans into the process.

While many sites are still penalized from the first version of Panda, downstream referrals to eHow.com from Google in the US were up over 9% last month. They know "how to create SEO content."

Recently a start up that launched a couple years ago decided to take their thousands of subdomains of scraped databases & partner with authoritative websites to syndicate that content around the web. Some of those get double listings & for some search queries there is the same page (with a different masthead logo) 5 different times. Those sites don't get hit by duplicate content filters or algorithms like Panda because they have enough domain authority that they get a free pass. Including AdSense in the set up probably makes it more palatable to Google as well.

If you have scale you can even auto-generate a bunch of "editorial" questions off the database.

More data = more pages = more questions and comparisons = more pages = SEO alchemy (especially if you don't have to worry about Panda).

The parent scraper site includes links back to itself on every syndicated page, which to some degree makes it a glorified PageRank funnel. WPMU.org got smoked for syndicating out a sponsored theme on one of his own sites, but the above industrial-scale set up is somehow reasonable because it was launched by a person who sold their first start up to Google (and will likely sell this start up to Google too). The site also includes undisclosed affiliate links & hands out "awards" badges to the best casual encounter sex dating sites, which then get syndicated around the web & get it many inbound links from "high quality" porn sites.

I won't name the site here for obvious reasons, but they are not doing the above in a cloak of darkness that one has to look hard to find & do deep research to patch together. For some search results they are half or more of the search result set & they even put out press releases when they add new syndication partners, linking to numerous new automated subdomains or sections within sites related to various categories.

When the search results look like that, if you do original in-depth reviews that are expensive there is zero incentive structure to leaving your content and ratings open to Google and these sort of scraper/syndicaters.

There is always a new spin on the mash up low end content with high trust websites and try to feed it into Google. So long as Google biases their algorithms toward big brands & looks the other way when they exploit the ecosystem that trend will not end.

The Illusion of Choice

The Independent Publishers Group, a principal distributor of about 500 small publishers, recently angered Amazon by refusing to accept the company’s peremptory demand for deeper discounts. Amazon promptly yanked nearly 5,000 digital titles. Small-press publishers were beside themselves. Bryce Milligan of Wings Press, based in Texas, spoke for most when, in a blistering broadside, he lambasted Amazon, complaining that its actions caused his sales to drop by 40 percent.

However, even when companies are brutal in some aspects they do amazing things in other areas, so one has to weigh the good with the bad.

At any point Google can fold one vertical into another or extend out a new model. The Android Marketplace feeds into Google Play, Google local feeds into Google+, Google search force feeds just about everything else & even free offerings on sites like YouTube will eventually become pay to play stores.

Where Google lacks marketshare & forced bundling isn't enough to compete they can buy the #2 or #3 player in the market & try to propel it to #1 using all those other forms of bundling.

Part of what made search competitive against other platforms was its openness & neutrality. But if the search results are Wal-Mart over and over again (or the same scraped info 5 times in a row, or a collection of internal listings) then the system becomes more closed off & the perception of choice becomes an illusion. John Andrews wrote a couple greatTweets expressing the shift in search:

"Google SEO is no longer worth the effort for those who are not writers, artists, speakers, trainers, or promoters. What happened to Search?"

"If you want to see what Google will look like after it locks up, look at Apple. ipad users are already "managed" very tightly."

When companies try to expand the depth of their platform with more features it is a double edged sword. At some point they capture more value than they create and are no longer worth the effort. When they get to that stage it becomes a race to the bottom with scrapers trying to outscrape one another. Then in turn the company that created the ecosystem problem uses the pollution they rewarded to further justify closing off the system, guaranteeing only more of the same. Those who actually add value move on looking for greener pastures.

A label or an interest is a vector for ad targeting. There is no need to worry about de-anonymizing data for ad targeting when it is all in-network and you monitor what someone does, control which messages they see, & track which ones they respond to. Tell someone something often enough and they may believe it is true.

The Contempt Large Companies Have for their Customers

There is a sameness to customer service from a lot of big companies. They spend loads & loads to track you and market to you, but then disappear the moment things go wrong, as they are forbidden to care.

Perhaps the only thing worse that AOL's customer support is the unmoderated comments on the YouTube page.

Denise Griffin, the person in charge of Google’s small customer-support team, asked Page for a larger staff. Instead, he told her that the whole idea of customer support was ridiculous. Rather than assuming the unscalable task of answering users one by one, Page said, Google should enable users to answer one another’s questions.

Even their official blog posts announcing that they are accepting customer feedback for your applications go unmoderated.

This sort of contempt exists at essentially all large companies.

Everything seems on the up & up, but that "private listing" was maybe for a counterfeit product.
If it isn't a counterfeit & you get too good of a price you are threatened with a lawsuit, and the branded network falls behind a "oh we are just a marketplace and can't be bothered to give a crap about our customers" public relations angle.

The Retina MacBook is the least repairable laptop we’ve ever taken apart: unlike the previous model, the display is fused to the glass—meaning replacing the LCD requires buying an expensive display assembly. The RAM is now soldered to the logic board—making future memory upgrades impossible. And the battery is glued to the case—requiring customers to mail their laptop to Apple every so often for a $200 replacement. The design may well be comprised of “highly recyclable aluminum and glass”—but my friends in the electronics recycling industry tell me they have no way of recycling aluminum that has glass glued to it like Apple did with both this machine and the recent iPad. The design pattern has serious consequences not only for consumers and the environment, but also for the tech industry as a whole.
...
Every time we buy a locked down product containing a non-replaceable battery with a finite cycle count, we’re voicing our opinion on how long our things should last. But is it an informed decision? When you buy something, how often do you really step back and ask how long it should last? If we want long-lasting products that retain their value, we have to support products that do so.

One last bit of absurdity on the YouTube front. Google recently threatened to sue a site designed to convert YouTube videos into MP3s.

How does Google's "computers deserve free speech rights" & shagging 3rd party content to fill out their own vertical search services compare against their approach when someone uses YouTube content in a way Google does not desire?

Google's AdSense for domains funds boatloads of cybersquatting. While Google threatened to sue this particular site, they could have just took the domain due to it cybersquatting on the YouTube trademark. The fact that they chose to turn this into a press event rather than simply fix the issue shows that this is more for posturing.

Further aligned with the above point, while Google singled out a specific MP3 conversion site, there are other sites designed around doing the same exact thing which are PREMIUM ADSENSE PARTNERS, with the body of the page looking like this:

How Small Companies Are Taxed With Uncertainty

When Google decided to move away from direct marketing to brand advertising things that are often associated with size, scale & brand recognition became relevancy signals.

how much to invest in marketing, where to invest it, how to balance the need for short term cashflow with the required reinvestments to build real (or fake) brand signals

how long does the market have left before Google enters the niche and destroys the opportunity that organic SEO once represented

should you run 1 website, or many to hedge risks? and how many is optimal?

how big should your site be?

if one of your sites gets penalized, should you try to fix it up, should you start over with a new site, or should you consider SEO to be a pointless goal?

Google mentions that they want people to do what is best for the user & not worry about Google, but that advice is a recipe for pain

If you do not run a large & authoritative website there are so many landmines to trip over with the increasing complexity of SEO. And any of Google's "helpful" webmaster messages can suspend a webmaster in fear, leading them to an eventual bankruptcy.

Small companies need to do all sorts of canonicalization hoops & prune content and such to hope to avoid algorithms like Panda. Then Google changed their host crowding preferences to let some large sites get up to 8 listings in a single search result page for their LACK OF effort. Those larger sites can then partner with glorified scraper sites that syndicate databases feeding on domain authority with no risk of Panda.

Due to how Google penalizes smaller sites, those that rewrite their content will outrank them when they get hit. These horrible trends are so obvious that even non-SEOs like Tim Carter (who was a Google golden boy for years) highlights how the tables have tilted away from what is most relevant to what pays Google the most.

For the following study, we asked "Does this search result have ads on it? " to 1,000 searchers, per search results. Due to these surveys requiring a smaller image (to fit the ad unit size) we chose search results that generally had more ads on them (typically 3 or 4) so that the background had a significant portion of real estate devoted to ads, in spite of its small size. The one exception here was DuckDuckGo, as it only displays one ad at most even on highly commercial keywords like credit cards.

Other than resizing the search result to fit, the only modifications we generally made were removing the graphic picture from the Wikipedia page near the top of the DuckDuckGo SERP (since a prior study showed that users presumed there was a correlation between graphics and the perception of ads) and that in most cases we removed the right sidebar. We did include the sidebar ads on 3 different Bing, Google, & Yahoo! search results so that we could compare the impact of sidebar ads vs not having a sidebar.

Executive Summary

The 3 big takeaways are:

For most search engines, people are generally unaware of ads vs organic results if there are no ads in the right column ... most of these yes/no questions came down to about a 50/50 vote, even though all of them had ads on them. It is every bit as true today as it was in 2003.

If there is a right column, the percent of people who voted that there are ads on the page jumps significantly. Thus it is pretty safe to say that people think ads are in the right column & that the right column is ads.

Interestingly, among major search engines, Yahoo! (without sidebar) got more "yes, it has ads" votes than other search engines. In fact, Yahoo! without sidebar ads scored within 1% of Bing with sidebar ads.

Yahoo! still under-monetizes search (& complains about it publicly, blaming Bing) in part because Bing cut out a lot of the arbitrage, in part due to ad matching issues on longtail queries, and in part because Yahoo!'s ad background color is more noticeable to users, where other portals and search companies like Google & Bing blend it in so well that many users simply can not see it, particularly on laptops and older computers. Ask is the most aggressive ad blender of all search engines. If you click through to their results from a Google ad it plants a cookie to remove the background color on the Ask search result ads on all subsequent searches until you clear that cookie.

Combined Survey Results

For the question Does this search results have ads on it?

search engine

yes

no

AOL

53.1% (+3.9 / -3.9)

46.9% (+3.9 / -3.9)

Ask

52.0% (+4.0 / -4.1)

48.0% (+4.1 / -4.0)

Ask Arbitrage

51.6% (+3.9 / -3.9)

48.4% (+3.9 / -3.9)

Bing

50.2% (+3.8 / -3.8)

49.8% (+3.8 / -3.8)

Bing w Sidebar

57.7% (+3.7 / -3.8)

42.3% (+3.8 / -3.7)

Dogpile

44.7% (+4.1 / -4.0)

55.3% (+4.0 / -4.1)

Duck Duck Go

52.3% (+3.9 / -3.9)

47.7% (+3.9 / -3.9)

Google

54.5% (+4.0 / -4.0)

45.5% (+4.0 / -4.0)

Google w Sidebar

62.9% (+3.6 / -3.8)

37.1% (+3.8 / -3.6)

Yahoo!

56.8% (+3.9 / -4.0)

43.2% (+4.0 / -3.9)

Yahoo! w Sidebar

59.8% (+3.9 / -4.1)

40.2% (+4.1 / -3.9)

User Voting Images

Here are the images users saw when they voted:

AOL SERP

Ask SERP

Ask Arbitrage SERP

Bing SERP

Bing With Sidebar SERP

Dogpile SERP

DuckDuckGo SERP

Google SERP

Google With Sidebar SERP

Yahoo! SERP

Yahoo! With Sidebar SERP

Which SERP Has an Ad? (Maps vs AdWords Ads)

Prior to doing the above study, we asked users to please click on the search result which has an ad in it, listing search results side by side. Any bias presented in this (outside of both having smaller than actual sizes) impacts both images. At first we did a regular Google SERP where we included the branding & then we followed up with one that is more zoomed in on the actual search results but does not include branding. On the one that was less zoomed in people thought the map was an ad more often, but upon further zooming they thought it was roughly 50/50.

SERP

All (1172)

Left

53.7% (+3.3 / -3.4)

Right

46.3% (+3.4 / -3.3)

SERP

All (1198)

Left

49.6% (+3.4 / -3.4)

Right

50.4% (+3.4 / -3.4)

Comparing Google+ to Ads

Does this search result have ads on it?

layout

yes

no

Google+ without ads

56.3% (+3.1 / -3.1)

43.7% (+3.1 / -3.1)

Google+ with ads

56.9% (+3.2 / -3.2)

43.1% (+3.2 / -3.2)

large top ads w/o Google+

53.6% (+3.2 / -3.2)

46.4% (+3.2 / -3.2)

Searchers tend to think that Google+ integration in the right rail is an ad unit. More people voted that Google+ without ads had ads in the search results than a SERP with 4 AdWords ad units and no Google+ integration.

Search Engine Ad Background Color

After seeing that users generally guessed no better than a coin toss at best in most cases, we decided to ask What background color do Google search results use to denote top left search advertisements? The same question was asked of Yahoo! & Bing search results.

Google

Google

All (1147)

none, they are white

49.7% (+3.2 / -3.2)

blue

25.5% (+3.0 / -2.8)

yellow

10.6% (+2.3 / -2.0)

pink

7.0% (+2.1 / -1.6)

purple

7.2% (+2.2 / -1.7)

Yahoo!

Yahoo!

All (1080)

none, they are white

44.6% (+3.4 / -3.4)

blue

20.9% (+3.0 / -2.7)

yellow

15.6% (+2.7 / -2.4)

magenta

11.2% (+2.5 / -2.1)

orange

7.7% (+2.3 / -1.8)

Bing

Bing

All (1063)

none, they are white

49.0% (+3.6 / -3.6)

blue

23.5% (+3.2 / -3.0)

yellow

13.0% (+2.8 / -2.4)

purple

7.5% (+2.4 / -1.9)

pink

7.1% (+2.4 / -1.8)

Summary

Bing scored highest, however blue also scored as the 2nd highest color for all 3 search engines. Nearly half of searchers believe that top ads have a white background, which highlights a general widespread lack of awareness of search ads.

Search Engine

% Who Answered Correctly

Bing (blue)

23.5%

Yahoo! (magenta)

11.2%

Google (yellow)

10.6%

Ad Location on the SERP

Given how little awareness users have of ad background color, I decided to ask: Where might ads appear on search results at top search engines like Bing & Google?

User Trust in Ad Versus Organic Results

Ever since search engines have weeded out some of the more exploitative reverse billing fraud ads, trust in online ads has been growing. Based on the above, we wanted to see how users perceive ads vs organic search results, so I asked: Search engines include both algorithmic search results and ads in them. Which do you trust more?

Answer

All (1168)

I trust both equally

45.8% (+3.3 / -3.2)

Algorithmic search results

40.9% (+3.2 / -3.1)

Ads that appear in search results

13.3% (+2.5 / -2.2)

The above result surprised me given how people disliked money influencing search results. It is a strong compliment to the ads that only 40% of people trust the editorial more than the ads. However this number might be thrown off by the fact that many people are unaware of where the ads actually appear in the search results & what results are ads. (As noted above, most people voted that they thought that either search ads were only in the right column or that there weren't ads in the SERPs.)

Making Up for the Small Image Problem

One of the bigger issues with Google's current survey solution is that you are limited to rather small sized images. Such limitations do not harm asking a question like "what color does Google use for x" but they do make the search result a bit harder to see. To compensate for that problem we ran a separate survey on AYTM, where users were able to view a search result in full screen mode for 10 seconds & then they were asked 3 questions.

The purpose of the first question was to put a few seconds in between them seeing the image and them answering the second question. One other improvement that was made here (in addition to allowing users to see a larger sized search result image) was that we added an "I am not sure" answer to the questions. Below are the responses in table + graphic form, followed by the AYTM widget.

Where May Ads Appear on Google's Search Results Page?

Location

Vote

in the right column

28.70%

top of the left column

6.20%

bottom of the left column

1.90%

middle of the left column

2.30%

search results do not have ads in them

6.80%

I am not sure

18.90%

right column & the top + bottom of the left column

35.20%

Did the Viewed Search Result Have Any Ads On It?

Answer

Vote

I'm not sure

41.00%

no

12.40%

yes

46.60%

What Background Color Does Google Use to Denote Ads At the Top Left of Their Search Results?

Answer

Vote

none, they are white

28.10%

blue

20.80%

purple

1%

I'm not sure

22.60%

pink

6.80%

yellow

20.70%

Even directly after viewing a search result with 3 ads in it, most users are uncertain of where ads may appear, what color the ads are, and if the search result even had any ads in it!

In a RGB color space, hex #fef7e6 is composed of 99.6% red, 96.9% green and 90.2% blue. Whereas in a CMYK color space, it is composed of 0% cyan, 2.8% magenta, 9.4% yellow and 0.4% black. It has a hue angle of 42.5 degrees, a saturation of 92.3% and a lightness of 94.9%. #fef7e6 color hex could be obtained by blending #ffffff with #fdefcd. .

If you have an older monitor or a laptop which you are viewing at an angle these colors are nearly impossible to see.

Embed The AYTM Graph in Your Website

Here is the AYTM widget of the above 1,000 person survey, which you can embed in your website.

Surprisingly, older people are more likely to use a variety of search services while younger people are more likely to stick with their one favorite. I would have guessed that to be the other way around.

Which of the following have you heard of?

More people have heard of paid search / AdWords than have SEO / link building. One of the big issues with this question is that since it had numerous check boxes it had a lower response rate (roughly 10% vs an average of closer to 16% to 18%) & took longer for the answers to come in. In the future I can see Google adding quality score styled factors to quizes where pricing is in part based on response rate & they charge premiums for quicker responses. Anyhow, on to the results...

Vote

All (1501)

Pay Per Click

45.8% (+2.5 / -2.5)

AdWords

32.7% (+2.4 / -2.3)

SEO

21.3% (+2.1 / -2.0)

Link Building

15.9% (+1.9 / -1.8)

Ad Retargeting

14.9% (+1.9 / -1.7)

Men tend to have slightly greater awareness of SEO than women. That sort of makes sense given that most SEO conferences are heavily dominated by male attendees.

Vote

Men (755)

Women (543)

Gender unknown (203)

Pay Per Click

45.2% (+3.6 / -3.5)

45.7% (+4.2 / -4.1)

48.3% (+6.8 / -6.8)

AdWords

33.4% (+3.4 / -3.3)

32.2% (+4.0 / -3.8)

31.5% (+6.7 / -6.0)

SEO

24.8% (+3.2 / -2.9)

18.6% (+3.5 / -3.0)

15.3% (+5.6 / -4.3)

Link Building

18.9% (+2.9 / -2.6)

12.2% (+3.0 / -2.5)

14.3% (+5.5 / -4.2)

Ad Retargeting

16.4% (+2.8 / -2.5)

13.1% (+3.1 / -2.6)

13.8% (+5.4 / -4.1)

People in the 25 to 34 age range tend to be more aware of these terms than other age groups.

Vote

18-24 year-olds (229)

25-34 year-olds (316)

35-44 year-olds (162)

45-54 year-olds (227)

55-64 year-olds (182)

65+ year-olds (99)

Pay Per Click

30.1% (+6.2 / -5.6)

50.3% (+5.5 / -5.5)

48.8% (+7.6 / -7.6)

44.9% (+6.5 / -6.3)

51.1% (+7.2 / -7.2)

51.5% (+9.6 / -9.7)

AdWords

37.1% (+6.4 / -6.0)

40.5% (+5.5 / -5.3)

32.7% (+7.6 / -6.8)

33.0% (+6.4 / -5.8)

22.0% (+6.6 / -5.4)

20.2% (+9.0 / -6.7)

SEO

21.4% (+5.8 / -4.8)

32.6% (+5.4 / -4.9)

29.6% (+7.4 / -6.5)

14.1% (+5.1 / -3.9)

13.2% (+5.7 / -4.2)

18.2% (+8.7 / -6.4)

Link Building

17.0% (+5.4 / -4.3)

17.4% (+4.6 / -3.8)

16.0% (+6.4 / -4.9)

15.9% (+5.3 / -4.2)

15.4% (+6.0 / -4.5)

12.1% (+7.9 / -5.0)

Ad Retargeting

12.2% (+4.9 / -3.6)

16.1% (+4.5 / -3.6)

17.3% (+6.6 / -5.0)

18.9% (+5.6 / -4.6)

11.0% (+5.4 / -3.8)

16.2% (+8.5 / -6.0)

The map is sort of all over the map...there are no easily definable regional patterns.

Vote

The US Midwest (320)

The US Northeast (415)

The US South (432)

The US West (316)

Pay Per Click

43.8% (+5.5 / -5.3)

47.5% (+4.8 / -4.8)

43.1% (+4.7 / -4.6)

48.7% (+5.5 / -5.5)

AdWords

33.1% (+5.3 / -4.9)

30.6% (+4.6 / -4.2)

33.1% (+4.6 / -4.3)

34.5% (+5.4 / -5.0)

SEO

18.1% (+4.6 / -3.8)

24.3% (+4.4 / -3.9)

19.2% (+4.0 / -3.4)

22.2% (+4.9 / -4.2)

Link Building

15.3% (+4.4 / -3.5)

13.5% (+3.6 / -3.0)

18.5% (+3.9 / -3.4)

16.1% (+4.5 / -3.6)

Ad Retargeting

13.8% (+4.2 / -3.3)

14.2% (+3.7 / -3.0)

17.1% (+3.8 / -3.3)

13.6% (+4.2 / -3.3)

People in urban areas tend to be more aware of SEM terms than rural people are. This is not particularly surprising since in smaller towns word of mouth and word around the town goes a long way (I used to live in a town of 1200 people) and in cities there is a lot more options than any one person can try & there is far greater noise/competition in the marketplace, both from a consumer and business perspective.

The "unknown" density category only had 32 total responses, so that is just noise.

Vote

Urban areas (793)

Rural areas (113)

Suburban areas (563)

Urban Density unknown (32)

Pay Per Click

45.4% (+3.5 / -3.4)

38.9% (+9.2 / -8.5)

47.8% (+4.1 / -4.1)

43.8% (+16.9 / -15.6)

AdWords

35.6% (+3.4 / -3.3)

27.4% (+8.9 / -7.4)

29.3% (+3.9 / -3.6)

40.6% (+17.1 / -15.1)

SEO

24.7% (+3.1 / -2.9)

15.9% (+7.8 / -5.6)

16.9% (+3.3 / -2.9)

31.2% (+17.3 / -13.3)

Link Building

15.5% (+2.7 / -2.4)

17.7% (+8.1 / -5.9)

16.2% (+3.3 / -2.8)

12.5% (+15.6 / -7.5)

Ad Retargeting

14.6% (+2.6 / -2.3)

19.5% (+8.3 / -6.2)

13.3% (+3.1 / -2.6)

31.2% (+17.3 / -13.3)

There are not many clear patterns among income (that surprises me as I would have thought there was a strong correlation). However, once again, the data is skewed to exclude most people with higher incomes, as there was only 1 response at > $150,000 / year.

In the below poll we didn't make any distinction between AdWords & organic SEO investments. If we did I am not sure how it would have impacted the voting.

How do you feel about people paying for placement in search engines?

Nearly 2 in 3 people dislike money manipulating search results.

response

All (1201)

I think it is deceptive

65.4% (+3.3 / -3.5)

It is good if it is relevant

34.6% (+3.5 / -3.3)

Women tend to dislike it slightly more than men.

answer

Men (813)

Women (388)

I think it is deceptive

63.6% (+3.6 / -3.8)

67.2% (+5.4 / -5.9)

It is good if it is relevant

36.4% (+3.8 / -3.6)

32.8% (+5.9 / -5.4)

Older people tend to think money influencing search is manipulative, as do younger people who have not had their idealism beaten out of them by the harshness of the world. However the people in the 25 to 34 range who grew up with the web tend to like paid search far more than other groups do.

response

18-24 year-olds (350)

25-34 year-olds (266)

35-44 year-olds (164)

45-54 year-olds (194)

55-64 year-olds (148)

65+ year-olds (80)

I think it is deceptive

61.3% (+5.0 / -5.2)

47.9% (+6.6 / -6.6)

63.8% (+7.0 / -7.7)

72.5% (+5.8 / -6.7)

72.8% (+6.9 / -8.1)

70.6% (+9.9 / -12.3)

It is good if it is relevant

38.7% (+5.2 / -5.0)

52.1% (+6.6 / -6.6)

36.2% (+7.7 / -7.0)

27.5% (+6.7 / -5.8)

27.2% (+8.1 / -6.9)

29.4% (+12.3 / -9.9)

People in the south tend to dislike money influencing search than any other region & people out west are more accepting of it. Perhaps the audience from California is more likely to understand how search impacts the local economy?

answer

The US Midwest (267)

The US Northeast (333)

The US South (355)

The US West (246)

I think it is deceptive

64.3% (+6.9 / -7.5)

66.4% (+5.9 / -6.4)

69.5% (+5.6 / -6.2)

59.8% (+7.4 / -7.8)

It is good if it is relevant

35.7% (+7.5 / -6.9)

33.6% (+6.4 / -5.9)

30.5% (+6.2 / -5.6)

40.2% (+7.8 / -7.4)

Rural people dislike money influencing search more than urban people do.

response

Urban areas (620)

Rural areas (109)

Suburban areas (460)

I think it is deceptive

63.2% (+4.4 / -4.6)

70.9% (+8.9 / -10.8)

65.3% (+4.9 / -5.2)

It is good if it is relevant

36.8% (+4.6 / -4.4)

29.1% (+10.8 / -8.9)

34.7% (+5.2 / -4.9)

Income has essentially no impact on the perception of the influence of money in search (though there was insufficient data at the upper end of the income range).

How do you feel about companies tracking your online behavior to target ads?

Surprisingly, nearly 1 in 11 people like ad retargeting. However, over 3 in 5 people dislike it.

response

All (1250)

I dislike it because it feels creepy

62.3% (+3.1 / -3.3)

I don't care either way

29.3% (+3.1 / -2.9)

I like more relevant ads

8.3% (+2.3 / -1.9)

Women tend to think being stalked by ads is creepier than men do.

vote

Men (822)

Women (428)

I dislike it because it feels creepy

60.6% (+3.7 / -3.8)

64.1% (+5.0 / -5.3)

I don't care either way

30.0% (+3.6 / -3.4)

28.7% (+5.1 / -4.6)

I like more relevant ads

9.5% (+2.6 / -2.1)

7.2% (+4.2 / -2.7)

Younger people who are old enough to be starting families tend to be more financially stressed than most other age groups, so they are likely more appreciative of relevant ads tied to discounts & such. Younger people have also used the web for so much of their lives that they are not as creeped out by tracking & privacy issues as older people are. People in retirement also like relevant ads, perhaps in part because they are feeling the Ben "printing press gone wild but no inflation" Bernake pinch & see their fixed income retirements collapse under artificially low interest rates tied to money printing game.

age

18-24 year-olds (372)

25-34 year-olds (270)

35-44 year-olds (150)

45-54 year-olds (217)

55-64 year-olds (164)

65+ year-olds (77)

I dislike it because it feels creepy

60.2% (+4.8 / -5.0)

52.3% (+6.3 / -6.4)

65.1% (+7.2 / -8.0)

66.0% (+6.1 / -6.6)

66.6% (+6.9 / -7.7)

55.7% (+11.2 / -11.8)

I don't care either way

33.6% (+4.9 / -4.6)

35.0% (+6.4 / -5.9)

25.5% (+7.6 / -6.3)

27.9% (+6.4 / -5.6)

26.9% (+7.5 / -6.3)

33.5% (+11.9 / -10.1)

I like more relevant ads

6.2% (+2.9 / -2.0)

12.7% (+5.1 / -3.8)

9.5% (+5.9 / -3.8)

6.1% (+3.9 / -2.5)

6.4% (+5.2 / -2.9)

10.7% (+9.1 / -5.2)

People from the west coast are perhaps slightly more aware of the risks of online tracking. People from the south couldn't care either way. In the midwest the stereotype of the mom who clips coupons is shown in the data (though the sample size is small).

vote

The US Midwest (259)

The US Northeast (340)

The US South (404)

The US West (247)

I dislike it because it feels creepy

58.5% (+6.5 / -6.9)

61.8% (+5.9 / -6.3)

61.6% (+5.7 / -6.0)

67.2% (+6.2 / -6.8)

I don't care either way

29.9% (+6.6 / -5.9)

29.1% (+5.8 / -5.2)

32.4% (+5.9 / -5.4)

24.6% (+6.7 / -5.6)

I like more relevant ads

11.6% (+5.6 / -4.0)

9.1% (+5.0 / -3.3)

6.0% (+4.6 / -2.7)

8.2% (+5.7 / -3.5)

On everything outside of disliking online tracking the margin of error is wide enough that it is somewhat hard to notice any strong patterns based on population data.

vote

Urban areas (636)

Rural areas (108)

Suburban areas (480)

I dislike it because it feels creepy

58.9% (+5.0 / -5.1)

61.1% (+9.0 / -9.8)

62.6% (+4.5 / -4.7)

I don't care either way

32.3% (+5.1 / -4.7)

33.9% (+9.9 / -8.6)

27.6% (+4.5 / -4.1)

I like more relevant ads

8.8% (+4.4 / -3.0)

5.0% (+8.7 / -3.3)

9.8% (+3.6 / -2.7)

It is also hard to see much of a broad pattern based on income levels.

But do users care about how Google+ was integrated directly into the search results? Generally no.

How do you feel Google+ integration has impacted Google's relevancy?

Under 1 in 5 people said it made the search results better, under 1 in 5 said it made the search results worse & over 3 in 5 didn't notice any material impact.

vote

All (1260)

no noticeable impact

64.7% (+3.3 / -3.5)

made it better

17.4% (+2.9 / -2.6)

made it worse

17.9% (+3.0 / -2.7)

Men liked it slightly more than women. However, that difference was within the estimated range of error. If this difference was more significant one might guestimate that women are better at socializing offline & have less need for artificial web relationships, given their relatively larger corpus callosum. ;)

vote

Men (875)

Women (385)

no noticeable impact

64.1% (+3.4 / -3.6)

65.3% (+5.5 / -5.9)

made it better

18.7% (+3.0 / -2.6)

16.2% (+5.2 / -4.1)

made it worse

17.2% (+2.9 / -2.6)

18.5% (+5.3 / -4.4)

Older people are less likely to have loads of online friends & relationships (as they spent most of their lives building relationships in the physical world, before the web or online social networks were popular). Older people also tend to be more set in their ways. Thus many older people won't be signed up for Google+ & won't notice as much of an impact from it.

Younger people are more likely to want to try out new technology, thus they are more likely to notice an impact from it. Some generations tend to be more isolated & individualistic (like the baby boomers) while millennials tend to like to work in groups & network more (it isn't an accident that Facebook started on a college campus & targeted college students), thus younger people are not only more likely to notice something like Google+, but they are also more likely to like its impact.

vote

18-24 year-olds (334)

25-34 year-olds (322)

35-44 year-olds (141)

45-54 year-olds (204)

55-64 year-olds (167)

65+ year-olds (93)

no noticeable impact

59.8% (+5.1 / -5.4)

64.0% (+5.4 / -5.7)

66.6% (+7.3 / -8.2)

59.3% (+6.6 / -7.0)

65.7% (+6.9 / -7.7)

73.9% (+8.1 / -10.1)

made it better

26.6% (+5.0 / -4.4)

18.8% (+5.0 / -4.1)

16.3% (+7.2 / -5.3)

19.1% (+6.2 / -4.9)

16.4% (+6.7 / -5.0)

7.9% (+8.7 / -4.3)

made it worse

13.6% (+4.1 / -3.3)

17.2% (+4.8 / -3.9)

17.1% (+7.4 / -5.5)

21.6% (+6.0 / -5.0)

17.9% (+6.5 / -5.0)

18.2% (+9.9 / -7.0)

I didn't notice any obvious trends or patterns aligned with locations across the country.

vote

The US Midwest (267)

The US Northeast (360)

The US South (378)

The US West (255)

no noticeable impact

65.5% (+6.7 / -7.3)

61.3% (+7.3 / -7.8)

67.6% (+5.6 / -6.1)

62.4% (+6.6 / -7.1)

made it better

16.2% (+6.2 / -4.7)

20.5% (+7.8 / -6.1)

17.2% (+5.0 / -4.1)

16.5% (+6.3 / -4.8)

made it worse

18.4% (+6.9 / -5.3)

18.2% (+6.3 / -4.9)

15.1% (+5.6 / -4.3)

21.1% (+6.6 / -5.3)

Suburban people were more likely to notice an impact, though they were not heavily skewed in one way or the other

vote

Urban areas (669)

Rural areas (124)

Suburban areas (450)

no noticeable impact

65.9% (+4.1 / -4.4)

66.8% (+9.0 / -10.4)

62.0% (+4.7 / -5.0)

made it better

16.4% (+3.7 / -3.1)

14.3% (+8.5 / -5.7)

20.4% (+4.4 / -3.8)

made it worse

17.6% (+3.9 / -3.3)

18.9% (+9.8 / -7.0)

17.6% (+4.2 / -3.6)

People who earned less were less likely to notice positive or negative impact from Google+ integration (somewhat surprising since younger people tend to skew toward lower incomes & younger people were more likely to notice & like Google+ integration). Outside of that, the data is too bunched up to see any other significant patterns based on income.